Talk:Doc Willard (New Earth)
Original introduction: Earth-One or Earth-Two? When I created this article I made it so that the note claimed that Doc Willard was originally introduced in Earth-Two continuity. That has been changed into Earth-One since. I will attempt to support my previous call as the correct one. It seems to me that the Superman/Batman stories in World's Finest #248-254 are all in Earth-One continuity (all of the Superman-Batman team-up stories in WF are from Earth-One far as I know), while Batman #75 is an Earth-Two story. Both feature Doc Willard, so we clearly have him in both continuities. That is not remarkable. Lots of Batman characters, including minor villains, exist in both Earth-One and Earth-Two in almost identical guises. Case in point: World's Finest #248 reintroduces Julie Madison, who went unmentioned for thirty years and therefore gained an Earth-One version right there. The story even footnotes Detective Comics #49 from 1948, so we must assume that her story is nearly identical to that of her Earth-Two counterpart. She played a much larger, very significant role in issue #253 as well, in a story that also features Doc Willard. Willard bizarrely appears in 1953's Batman #75, and then in 1978-1979's World's Finest #251-#254 in what turns out to be four fairly unconnected stories. Other than reprints, that is the whole of his appearances far as I know. The natural conclusion is that Doc Willard, much like Julie Madison/Princess Portia, exists in nearly identical forms in both Earth-Two and Earth-One and therefore qualifies squarely as a New Earth continuity character. There is just no good reason to split him into either an Earth-One or Earth-Two separate character. Yes, Julie Madison was split, but that was borderline IMO and perhaps only because we don't know for a fact that Earth-Two Julie ever married the King of Moldacia/Moldachia. Since we literally know nothing of Earth-Two Julie after Detective #49, we could easily (and perhaps should) merge her with her Earth-One counterpart into New Earth continuity as well. Come to think of it, I created the article on Earth-One Julie a few hours ago and that may have been a mistake. It would be better to make the switch of the already existing Earth-Two Julie into New Earth instead and complement the information there. Until we have any indication that E2 Julie diverged from E1 Julie, that would be just perfect, would it not? The bottom line is that there is no clear reason why the E1 Willard should be treated as a significantly different character from E2 Willard. As a matter of fact, World's Finest #251 clearly establishes that E1 Willard has a past story that is indistinguishable from what we saw in Batman #75, which was up until then the only appearance of Doc Willard whatsoever. So I think my choice to claim that he was introduced in Earth-Two continuity stands. And if it turns out that I am wrong, then we should probably create a separate article for E2 Willard and give some form of unique content into it. Not sure whether that would make the current article a part of Earth-One or New Earth continuity. LuisDantas (talk) 15:01, September 8, 2016 (UTC) Edited to add: I see that the argument has been made that Batman #75 is actually an early Earth-one story. I suppose that is possible. Nothing except perhaps for cosmetic appearances seem to contradict it. But it does not seem to be a common, well-agreed position far as I can tell. As we can see for instance in the notes for Batman Vol 1 95 and Batman Vol 1 96, two common opinions are that we had Earth-Two Batman until either #80 or #95. Batman Vol 1 81 is considered an early Earth-One story, so #75 could be easily enough be one as well. Ultimately it is a judgement call. We do not have any clear indications that a separate E2 Willard exists, nor do we have any clear indication or even hint that the Batman #75 story was not in Earth-Two. It comes down to deciding between an early glimpse of E1 continuity or else a couple of minor characters (Willard and George "Gorilla Boss" Dyke) existing in both E1 and E2. LuisDantas (talk) 15:18, September 8, 2016 (UTC) :I See your point. These characters are always difficult to define, but I really don't see the need to split this page on Earth-Two and Earth-One counterparts. The characer remains pretty much the same in all stories. I do believe however that somewhere in the article it should be noted that the character was introduced during the Earth-Two era, even if the story is considered an early Earth-One depiction. It was still during days of the Earth-Two universe. That's the Multicont template function. The infobox however, should reflect the universe(s) in which the character existed. That way we have correct information on both fronts. - S.S. (talk) 15:45, September 8, 2016 (UTC)